Hi all, just returned home from Bali.
Bali is a tropical island in the Indonesian archipelego. Such are the vagaries of geography that its cheaper and quicker for me to get to Bali than it is for me to go to Sydney or Melbourne (Singapore is a slightly longer flight for me from Perth compared to the flight to Sydney, where my girlfriend lives).
I had not been to Bali for about 15 years. I went there for a friend's 40th birthday. He, on the other hand, loves the place and has been there over 30 times in the the last 20 years. The international airport is in a mid-sized city called Denpasar. There's not much there for the average tourist.
Next to Denpasar is Kuta. This is a grubby town filled with sleazy bars, tattoo places and aggressive hawkers. It was the site of the Bali bombings in 2002 where around 40 Westerners were killed by Islamist extremists (Bali itself is overwhelmingly Hindu - the terrorists were from Java). I'm not much of a fan of Kuta at all. It is filled with "ugly Australians": guys in Bintang singlets with bad tattoos and mullet haircuts.
After Kuta is Legian, then Seminyak (sp?) and then Canggu. Canggu is where we stayed. The place I was in was down a dusty potholed road with stray dogs and chickens, and random all night stalls selling petrol in old Absolut bottles, strange and exotic fruits, and softdrink, the vendors sitting in plastic chairs or on upturned Coke crates watching Indonesian soap operas. At night, the flickering blue light of the televisions lit the chalky streets, the muttering of the soap stars mingled with the cluck of chickens and the growls of the dogs. Very quiet and empty. Banana trees and palms lined the roads, but no thick jungle: the place is well-settled. One night, a big 747 veered over the street, its headlights piercing the low cloud, looking like a prop from Star Wars, totally incongruous with the Third World surrounds.
Our villa, called La Tra, was unmarked on the road. We had to go down a very narrow side alley, where locals stood out the back of a house moulded ornamental smiling elephants out of cement. The rough hewn road suddenly turned to brick, and then to expensive concrete slabs. On either side of the short road was a rice paddy, one fallow with an old well covered in vine, the other well maintained and covered in fishing net. Ropes suspended bits of plastic, flapping in the breeze over the rice paddy. The farmer had a rope which he used as a whip, and an elaborate clanging system of sticks, rope and tin sheeting. All of this effort was to scare sparrows, which would swarm over the crop. The farmer used to start the clanger at 6:30am, which was a bit too early on mornings when we were hungover.
The villa was absolutely incongruous. It was a strange glass and wood structure, with a big lap pool overlooked by enormous water features. Here is a series of photos:
http://la-tra-bali.be-villas.com/ It was extremely luxurious, with five of us supported by a chef, a driver, three other staff including a gardener, an unknown number of security, and a manager. The driver and the manager definitely did not live there. Our modest daily rate kept all of these people employed and apparently busy. (The staff were excellent: Australians do not tip as a tradition, but we gave them one anyway.)
Out the back of the villa was an old Buddhist shrine, partially obscured from view by a steep drop and some dense vines. Every morning the Buddhists would lay offerings in palm leaf boxes, filled with strange organic things of different colours and shapes, together with a lit incense stick. There was a mosque somewhere nearby, because I heared the muezzin call to the faithful at 7:30pm every night.
The reason why we were in Canggu was because the birthday boy likes to surf, and so every morning he and another 10 guys would head out into the ocean. My villa had no surfers (4 lawyers and a doctor) so we just stuffed our faces and has two massages a day ($12 for an hour). I felt like I was being plumped up for some sort of cannibal festival. The local Balinese food is tasty - lots of spices, baked fish, pork, shredded beef.
The real downside to going to Bali is disease. "Bali belly" is the Australian name for the intestinal misfortune which causes vomiting and diahorrea. In my case, I only got the green apple splatters, but had bad headaches and eye aches for my sins.
I was a little surprised by Canggu and how much I enjoyed it. Anyway, thought I'd share this little snapshot.
